A Consultant's Casebook

They Shoot the Messenger!

I presented our findings in the General’s briefing room
with two flip charts and a pile of transparencies.With a polished performance, I led the General and his staff
through the analyses that (in my mind) clearly demonstrated that after removing
the sampling bias from 1990 to 1991, attitudes toward military service had not
dropped among young males.Confidently,
I presented the conclusion that young people’s attitudes are reasonably
resilient, and that I would not expect a dramatic change in a brief time period.

General Wheeler was not pleased!He countered with the observation that (1) recruiting had
gotten more difficult in 1991, and (2) that after he installed his new
leadership team recruiting had gotten easier!EXPLAIN THAT! The modern Army is built to respond to leadership!

I didn’t enjoy getting dressed down, but the General
had a point.Recruiters had
reported that they couldn’t find enough recruits during 1991.And by 1992 recruiters really were satisfying their manning
requirements.Clearly something had
happened – but what, and how?

I felt comfortable discounting the attitudinal data from
YATS.Psychologists have been
trying to relate attitudes to behavior since the study of attitudes began, and
they have limited and barely significant results to show for decades of research
– even under the most controlled laboratory conditions.Outside the laboratory in real life, behavior is determined by countless,
random, and uncontrolled events, and attitudes are unlikely to have a marked
effect.

So, what else had changed in the recruiting environment
that could have an effect as dramatic as that reported?Recall that the mission had changed dramatically – twice during this
period.Initially, due to the
reduction in Army personnel, recruiting demands were relatively low, and
recruiters needed to put only one man in boots every month.With the Desert Shield/Desert Storm campaign, recruiters were put under
increasing pressure and needed to enlist about 50% more men.The quick and decisive victory in Iraq meant that recruiting pressure
dropped once more to its original level.

So there, General Wheeler!It wasn’t your inspired leadership that “turned the
force.”Instead, things got
harder because you demanded more, and then things got easier because you let up.But I didn’t dare bring him that explanation without some pretty
convincing evidence.